1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates, in general, to a disposal of edible waste material consisting of domestic and commercial food waste products in addition to marine, livestock and agriculture by-products resulting from the commercial production of food items and, more particularly, to a method and device for producing feed stuff or organic fertilizer from such waste material by naturally fermenting and drying the material at low temperatures while uniformly mixing and crushing such material.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In accordance with the elevation in the standard of living, the amount of edible waste material, such as domestic and commercial food waste products in addition to marine, livestock and agriculture by-products resulting from the commercial production of food items, rapidly increases, so that an issue arises concerning the disposal of such waste material.
In an effort to effectively treat such waste material, several types of devices, used for producing feed stuff or organic fertilizer from such waste material through a fermentation and drying process, are proposed as disclosed in Korean Patent Publication Nos. 93-1480, 94-9484 and 96-4473.
In the above Korean devices, a fermenting/drying chamber is vertically, horizontally or inclinedly positioned with a drive shaft being axially and rotatably set in the chamber. An agitating blade or helical screw is provided on the drive shaft, thus stirring, mixing and crushing edible waste material while moving the material within the chamber, thus producing feed stuff or organic fertilizer from edible waste material.
However, such a typical device, with the agitating blade or helical screw, is problematic in that the device only partially loads waste material on a part in the chamber due to a structural limit of the agitating blade or the helical screw. Therefore, it is impossible for the device to uniformly or effectively stir or mix the waste material. In order to overcome such a problem, the helical screw may be designed for rotating upon the drive shaft in opposite directions and having different diameters. The helical screw, with opposite spiral directions and different diameters, somewhat effectively mixes edible waste material while moving the material in opposite directions. However, such a helical screw, with opposite spiral directions and different diameters, also fails to uniformly mix or crush waste material since the material is heavy and bulky, thus sinking under its own weight.
Due to such a nonuniformity in mixing and crushing the edible waste material in the chamber, the typical device fails to completely ferment or dry the waste material into feed stuff or organic fertilizer and reduces the quality of resulting feed stuff or organic fertilizer. It is extremely impractical to provide animals with such a low quality feed stuff or organic fertilizer.
Another problem experienced in the above devices resides in that the agitating blade or helical screw in the chamber is partially overloaded with heavy and bulky material and this results in exceeding consumption of electric power and shortens the expected life span of these devices.